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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society
Registered Charity No. 1121231
Committee Annual Report, 28 November 2023
The Committee present their report together with the financial statements for the twelvemonth
financial period ended 31st August 2023. The Society is a registered charity and the Committee have adopted the provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting and Reporting by Charities issued in March 2005.
Reference and Administration Information
Charity Name: Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society Charity Registration No: 1121231
Registered Office and Principal Address: Thatches, Welders Lane, Chalfont St Peter, Bucks SL9 8TU
Committee:
The committee members in office at the date of this report are:
Officers: President Sarah Peterson Chairman Gillian Jones Secretary Kate Shawyer Treasurer Peter Cardoe (co-opted on in April 2023) Apiary – Training Jim Liness Education Steve Troll Events Dorothie Jones Membership Secretary Jane Butterworth Trading Mike Walters Webmaster/Social Media Giles Kenwright Beginners Representative Jilly Ellson
All committee members receive no fees or emoluments other than the reimbursements of expenses. The officers and general committee members are also Trustees for the purposes of charity law.
Structure and Governance
The Society is a registered with the Charities Commission as a ‘not-for-profit’ charity to advance the education of the public, including members of the Society, in the craft of beekeeping.
The management of the Society is vested in a Committee comprised of four officers of the Society namely, President, Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary, plus not more than seven additional members, all of whom shall comprise the Trustees. Four Trustees at Committee meetings comprise a quorum.
The Trustees are responsible for preparing their report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations. The Trustees have reviewed all policies for the year and have put in place a revised safeguarding policy and a revised Data Protection policy.
Year in Review
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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society
Registered Charity No. 1121231
As with all clubs throughout the UK we have had our ups and downs this year. On the upside, despite our only being able to attend four fetes this year all other numbers within the club have risen; membership, exams passed, visits to our apiaries, different training sessions held at the apiaries, and we event made a small profit.
On the downside, we were told earlier this year, by the owner of the land where our Training Apiary is sited, that he was to sell all his assets and we await notice of the new owner. On the upside we understand that they are very amenable to our staying. Also, we were informed that our yearly fees to Chesham Council for the license at our Observation Apiary will also rise per year but by a very small amount after renegotiation.
We made a permanent change to our speaker programme with the January and February meetings moving to Zoom. This seemed to be a popular move.
Because of our keen beginner’s group, Jim and his team have been kept very busy teaching not only those starting out beekeeping but also providing training in other beekeeping topics to other members of the club, twice a week.
Our Apiary at Chesham had a complete redesign and is now open to our more experienced beekeepers as an Observation Apiary covering topics such as alternative varroa treatments, observing bee behaviour within the hive and using different types of brood cover.
I mentioned that we attended only four of the six fetes we usually attend this year to educate the public and sell members honey, but our sales were exceptional, surpassing any taken previously, meaning both the club and those members who sent honey benefited.
Other members of the club have been invited into schools and adults education events to talk about various aspects of beekeeping.
Our annual Honey Show was held again at the Chalfont St Giles Show with enough entries to be able to be awarded a Blue-Ribbon.
One downside I would like to address is the extra work taken by the members of the main Committee who have needed to pick up the extra work when members of our Management Committee have given notice or stepped down for personal reasons. A lot of this work are not daily tasks and can often be done from home without attending any extra meetings. We ask for more of you to consider taking up the roles that we have within the club.
We look forward to holding our biennial Auction in 2024 and to seeing the club continue to flourish.
This is my last Club meeting and AGM and I thank you all for your support during my tenure, but I especially want to thank the whole of the Committee for working with me to have the club run as smoothly as it does, for the benefit of you all.
Speaker’s programme:
We decided this year to retain talks on Zoom, just for January and February to avoid members having to drive out in the dark nights. It also meant that we could get
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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society
Registered Charity No. 1121231
speakers from further afield. This has proved popular, and we shall be doing the same again next year.
However, we do feel the ‘social’ side of meeting in person is important so we will continue to try and entice you to leave home! A new experiment was a ‘hands on’ workshop where members could participate in making honey ferments. Places for this were soon fully booked.
Talks given this year were: -
September 2022 Bill Fisher and Sue Carter Making Mead October 2022 Shirley Richard & Meaghan Bond From comb to candle – live demonstration November 2022 AGM with Quiz December 2022 No Meeting January 2023 Kevin Thorne (Zoom) Things that beekeepers worry about but don’t need to. February 2023 Wally Shaw (Zoom) The role of swarm control in beekeeping. March 2023 BQT of CBS experts Instead of Sara Robb who had Covid. April 2023 Angela Kirk Honey ferments workshop May 2023 Lynne Ingram Honey fraud June 2023 Bill Fisher and Sue Carter Preparation for showing honey & wax. July 2023 No Meeting August 2023 No Meeting
Other local clubs were invited to the talks by Wally Shaw and Lynne Ingram, and we will continue to do this for important topics.
It is difficult to strike the balance between what different members want, depending on where they are in their ‘beekeeping journey’ and on their individual interests. We try to make the talks appropriate for the time of year, but if you have any suggestions of topics or speakers you would like to hear about, then the Committee would love to hear from you and will try to accommodate your requests. A questionnaire has been sent out to gauge your opinions. Please do fill it in.
More science and research? More practical beekeeping? More green issues? It’s your club!
Membership:
as of 7/23, Total 214 members Breakdown Registered 170 Partner 14 Junior 2 Country 4 School 1 Associate 0
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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society
Registered Charity No. 1121231
Education:
Taster Session and Beginners Course:
Both the session and the course were run successfully during late 2022 and 2023. We welcomed 28 people to the taster session in November 2022 and of those 11 went on to join 18 others to make a beginner’s course of 29 attendees.
The beginner’s course had high attendance throughout, resulting in high apiary attendance and nine new beekeepers, many of whom are active members of the Club and one of whom went on to win awards at the Chalfonts Honey Show.
Developing Beekeeping skills:
This was run over four zoom sessions followed by apiary visits focussing on practical second year tasks such as swarm prevention/management, uniting hives and honey extraction.
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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society
Registered Charity No. 1121231
Exams and assessments:
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2022 was a strong year academically.
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Seven beekeepers achieved their Basic Assessments.
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Five beekeepers achieved their Bee Health Assessments.
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Six took and passed their Module 3 exams and one achieved Module 8 and their Advanced Theory
Other
We also ran “Swarm collection” and “Winter prep” zoom calls, both of which will be repeated in 2024.
Apiaries:
The Training Apiary
The Amersham Training Apiary has had a successful summer with 119 visits from Beginners Course attendees and over 400 visits in total. Everyone says they learn something new when they visit the Apiary. We ran sessions for Beginners and Experienced Beekeepers. The sessions included Developing Beekeepers Skills, Raising Queens, Swarm Control, Drone Laying Queens and Workers, and Winter Preparation. We hosted training sessions and examinations for Bee Health and Basic Assessment.
We ran a successful Honey Extraction and Wax Preparation Day where attendees learned about extracting and bottling honey, wax preparation, candle making, preparation of comb and chunk honey. All participants were shown how to prepare products for shows and encouraged to enter the CBS Honey Show.
A special thank you to the volunteers who come along to the Apiary rain or shine and crack on with the tasks associated with running a Training Apiary. They create a great atmosphere, and everyone has fun, the Apiary couldn’t run without them - what a team! Thank you.
The Observation Apiary
The year started with a full inventory of the equipment at the Chesham apiary. A ’B-Box’ hive (Italian urban hive) was donated to the apiary in July but is not in use yet.
Only one colony survived the 2022-23 winter (4 frames of bees - colony 1.) Two colonies were sourced from the Amersham apiary (colonies 2 & 3). Our Apiary Manager donated a swarm of laying workers which was re-queened with a mated Queen donated by a member (colony 4). In addition, a member donated a swarm (colony 5).
Activities at the apiary focused on observing bee behaviour inside the hive in relation to time of year: space management, comb building, swarm management, laying patterns and the ratio of drone/worker brood.
We focused on varroa assessment using alcohol/icing sugar/CO2 methods as well as tray and drone brood assessment. In the end, only one colony was treated chemically, and the other four were treated technically (icing sugar coating).
We experimented with different types of brood cover (crownboard, plastic screen, hessian fabric).
We tried foundation-less frames in brood boxes and supers: lots of cross combing in supers!
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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society Registered Charity No. 1121231
We did not harvest any honey as three of the five colonies were too young to produce any substantial crop although they all have plenty of stores for winter.
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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society
Registered Charity No. 1121231
No Queen rearing was carried out, but we did re-queen a colony of laying workers successfully.
Two colonies were strong enough to swarm but didn’t. One colony swarmed and our bait hives failed to attract a swarm.
All sessions were attended by at least six club members, sometimes eight. All sessions also comprised of discussions on topics raised either in the BBKA newsletter or the Beecraft magazine.
It was our first season of being an ‘Observation apiary’. In 2024 we hope to try to observe much more, including perhaps behaviour outside the hive.
Events
Fetes and Fairs
This year we only attended four events instead of our customary five or six. This was due to a breakdown of communication with Little Chalfont Village Day and Farnham Common Orchard Day cancelled on us at the last minute.
We attended the following: -
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Hyde Heath Village Fete
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Feast of St Peter
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Chenies Manor Plant Fair
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Chalfont St Giles Village Show
All the events were well attended, and we didn’t get rained on. Just over £5,000 of members’ honey was sold, of which 10% was retained by the club.
As usual, we would like to thank our stalwart team of helpers. Some were our regular team members, many of whom stayed all day from early in the morning until the very end. We were glad to see however that there were several new volunteers this year, so thank you even if it was only for an hour or two at one event.
We would like to see many more of our 200+ members stepping up for next year, especially if we are selling your honey! It’s not arduous, can be fun and takes the strain from our core team, many of whom would like to be stepping back a bit! No experience is necessary, even if you haven’t kept bees yet. All welcome.
Special thanks to those who towed the trailer to and from events. We would like to hear from anyone else who can do this for us, so if you are a caravanner or have a horsebox for instance, please do get in touch. If we have enough people, you will only have to do one event per year.
Thanks too to Jim Liness and Sue Carter who provided observation hives on the day and to Tanvir Mukhtar for transporting and storing all your honey between events. We are looking for someone to fulfil this role next year.
This is your club, and we cannot put on these events without your co-operation.
Chiltern Open Air Museum Green Festival
As well as selling honey, our remit as a club is to educate the public about bees and beekeeping. One of our members keeps bees up at COAM and was asked if we could provide some information about bees for this new event they were organising.
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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society
Registered Charity No. 1121231
We did not do honey sales at this event, but an interesting day was spent with the public talking not only about bees and beekeeping but also about the importance of wild pollinators. We hope we will be invited back next year.
Denham, Gerrards Cross and Chalfont’s Community Sustainability Event
This indoor event in Gerrards Cross turned out to be more of a ‘networking’ opportunity with other organisations, rather than engagement with the public. Thanks to those who turned out to make our table look attractive and ’engage’ with everyone. We probably won’t attend again.
Bucks County Show Aylesbury
We took our trailer as usual to this large public event, where we helped to man the Bucks County Beekeepers stand under the direction of Mid Bucks Beekeepers. Our new gazebos definitely add a touch of professionalism to the pitch, and we won first prize in the Non-Agricultural Stall category. Well done everyone.
As well as these events, our members have been out and about giving talks to schools, old peoples’ residencies, and other community groups. If you feel you are able and would like to share your knowledge in this way, then we do have a speakers list so please get in touch.
Trading Report:
This year the bulk of the sales made have been honey jars, frames, and foundation. Again, there has been a noticeable reduction in the number of hives, hive parts or tools sold this year. Mike believes the loss of so many colonies over the winter and the increase in the price of equipment is one of the main reasons for the drop in sales this year. The price of jars and fondant has increased greatly and getting reductions for bulk buying is getting increasingly difficult. Thornes are considering whether to continue their concessions to beekeeping societies as profit margins get tighter. As a club, we are considering whether to continue our in-house trading arm and may instead look to negotiate direct discounts for club members from popular retailers such as Thornes. We would still try to maintain a stock of popular items such as jars, fondant, and wax foundation to have readily available for club members however and will seek feedback from members in the New Year on any changes.
The increase in sales of 12oz and 8oz jars compared to 1lb jars shows that some members are recouping the higher cost of producing honey by selling in smaller jars but at a similar price to the larger jars.
Financial Review:
This year we broke even – the society made an overall surplus of £196.
The sales of members’ honey and hive products, e.g. wax candles, fudge and marmalade, at local fetes and fairs, increased substantially to £7,713 compared with £4,726 last year; payments to members for honey sold at local fairs increased from £3,537 to £5,318. This has provided a net income to the club and a healthy income to the members who sold their products on the club stand. Capital expenditure this year has been minimal at £180. After including a 25% deduction for depreciation, the current
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Chalfonts Beekeepers’ Society
Registered Charity No. 1121231
fixed assets now stand at £1,766 which includes all re-saleable items, including the club trailer and various pieces of extraction equipment that members can borrow.
Trading turnover this year has been about 2% less than last year; down by £159. The value of stock held has fallen by £3,435.
Gift aid reclaims will be submitted to HMRC to the value of £1,360 in the next month or so. I must advocate the importance to your society of this charitable feature and urge all members who are able to include the gift aid statement with their membership renewals to do so: without these we would have faced a further in-year loss.
The current status of our financial holdings is a healthy one. We currently hold liquid assets of £22,061; that includes trading stock of £5,454. The overall book value of the Society has increased slightly by £196 and on 31st August was £24,374.
Future Strategy
In line with the objectives of the Society the Chalfont Beekeepers plan to continue to educate the
public and new beginners, develop existing beekeeper’s husbandry skills, support the undertaking of formal study in the BBKA education system and encourage junior beekeepers to take up the craft.
Annual General Meeting
The 2024 Annual General Meeting of the Members of the Society will be held on 26 November 2024 at 7.30pm. Venue to be confirmed.
Approved by the Committee on Tuesday 14 November 2023 and signed on its behalf by
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Gillian Jones Chairman
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- ! CHARITY COMMISSION i FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examinerfs report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trustees On accounts for the year ended 31¥t August 2023 Charity no lif any) 1121231 Set out on pages I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above chanty (llhe Trust") for the year ended 311812023. Rosponsibilities and basis of report As the charitys trustees. you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Chartties Ad 2011 he Acr). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts Carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have foll¢)wed all the aptAicabFe Directions given by the Charty Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the A(#. Independent l am qualified to urKlertake the examination by being a qualified member of examinerfs statement The Chartered Institute of Management Accountarrts I have c(xnpleted my examination. I confimi that no material matters have come to my attention in rxjnnertion with the examination which give me cause to believe that in. any material respect: the accourrting records were not kept in accordan with section 130 of the Charities Act; or the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements conceming the form and content of accounts set out in the Charib'es (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requiremerrt that the accounts give a 'true and fair, view whiGh is not a matter considered a5 part of an independent examination. I have no concems and have come acxoss no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper U[standing of the accounts to be reached. Sign8d: February 2024 Name: Adrian Andrews Relevant professional FGMA CGMA IER Oct 2018
qualification(s) or body (if any): Address: Foxcroft Bradcults Lane Cookham Dean SL6 9TL Section B Disclosure Only complete rf the examiner needs to highlight material matters of conr (see CC32, Independent examinth'on of chanty acwunts.. directions and guidance for examiners). Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose. IER Oct 2018